


Everything is Different, Everything's the Same

by lalalalarkin



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Slow Burn, Angel/Demon Relationship, Angels with iPhones, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Depression, Drunk Dialing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Existential Crisis, Gen, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Light Angst, Loss, Loss of Identity, M/M, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Psychological Trauma, Slow Burn, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 10:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19423990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalalarkin/pseuds/lalalalarkin
Summary: It had been eight months, one week, five days, 14 hours, 48 minutes, and 13—no, 14—seconds since the world had not ended. Not to imply, of course, that Aziraphale was counting.Now the former angel’s days were filled with books, restaurants, and brazenly public outings with Crowley, and his nights filled with... well... books, restaurants, and brazenly public outings with Crowley. There was an increasing ease to their relationship that hadn’t been there before Almostggedon, and the two of them had fallen into a rather lovely little routine.Books. Restaurants. Crowley. Repeat. Books. Restaurants. Crowley. Repeat.For months now, the unfetteredness of it had given Aziraphale a sort of high... or, at least, what he imagined a high must be like. All giggly and floaty and just a touch too bright around the edges.And if it sometimes felt a bit... anticlimactic... a little short of what he wanted in a way he couldn’t quite describe... a little too close to “the same”... well, that was what they’d fought for wasn’t it? To keep things the same? Of course it was. And they had succeeded!Except, of course, that everything was different.





	Everything is Different, Everything's the Same

**Author's Note:**

> The result of wondering about the growing pains Aziraphale would experience after cutting himself off from Heaven, and what he'd do with the rest of eternity once he fully processed the significance of what he'd done. After all, 6,000-year-old routines are hard to break. There will eventually be Aziraphale/Crowley, but it's gonna be a slow burn to get there.
> 
> All chapters titled after Queen songs, because of course.
> 
> \----------
> 
> I'm aiming to post once a week on Sundays. So keep an eye out!

A molten chocolate souffle was set down on the table in front of Aziraphale, joining the ranks of half a dozen empty wine bottles that he and his companion had drained over the last two hours. Crowley leaned forward, his yellow snake eyes glowing over the tops of those ridiculous sunglasses, with a concentrated expression that implied the words coming out of his mouth were exceptionally profound.

“So, what m’saying is…” he floundered, his gaze drifting off to the corner of the restaurant and back again, “...what m’saying is… communication.”

“But doesn’t that usually go both ways, dear?” Aziraphale drained his glass, grabbed the new bottle of wine that had been quietly left by that rather excellent waiter, and fumbled to pour another glass. “Seems like what you do is jus’... well, jus’ a bunch of yelling really.”

“Those plants know wha’s _esspected_ of ‘em,” Crowley continued. “And tha’s my point. Esspectations and… and all that. _Communication!_ ” He threw his hands in the air with a flourish.

“Hm,” Aziraphale said vaguely, as if he completely followed this train of thought. Crowley sat back, looking very pleased with himself.

It had been eight months, one week, five days, 14 hours, 48 minutes, and 13—no, 14—seconds since the world had not ended. Not to imply, of course, that Aziraphale was counting.

After throwing a wrench into millennia of ethereal and demonic plans, somewhat-maybe-sort-of helping to save all of humanity, and narrowly avoiding a celestial barbecue, a few months of quiet were downright bliss. There were Antichrist-gifted books to peruse, desserts to consume, and bottles of wine to share with his favorite demon, all free from the long-standing fear that the forces above and below would lose their collective shit and smite them. After all, said shit had already been well and truly lost, smiting had most definitely been attempted, and they had both escaped unscathed.

Now the former angel’s days were filled with books, restaurants, and brazenly public outings with Crowley, and his nights filled with... well... books, restaurants, and brazenly public outings with Crowley. There was an increasing ease to their relationship that hadn’t been there before Almostggedon, and the two of them had fallen into a rather lovely little routine.

Books. Restaurants. Crowley. Repeat. Books. Restaurants. Crowley. Repeat.

For months now, the unfetteredness of it had given Aziraphale a sort of high... or, at least, what he _imagined_ a high must be like. All giggly and floaty and just a touch too bright around the edges. The same peculiar sensation that he had always felt around Crowley, if he was being honest with himself, but now in turbo mode and Technicolor.

And if it sometimes felt a bit... anticlimactic... a little short of what he wanted in a way he couldn’t quite describe... a little too close to “the same”... well, that was what they’d fought for wasn’t it? To keep things the same? Of course it was. And they had succeeded!

Except, of course, that everything was different.

Not a whisper from Heaven or, according to his companion, Hell. Radio silence, as it were. It seemed as though their little body switching stunt had done the trick and they had finally, truly, been left to their own devices.

But what had begun as a relief—No strongly-worded memos! No unexpected street-side telling-offs!—had, somewhere along the line, mutated into withdrawal. It wasn’t that Aziraphale missed being yelled at, or even that he particularly missed his angel compatriots, but after 6,000 years the never-ending stream of notes and performance reviews and check-ins had become a sort of white noise humming all around his earthly existence. The sort of noise one doesn’t even notice is there until it’s suddenly taken away.

And of late that brightness around the edges had, inexplicably and altogether against his will, begun to fade, leaving the former angel with a sort of psychological flash blindness. As if every sight, every conversation, every meal, was filtering through a faint haze. A faint, unnervingly quiet haze.

The effect was... less than enjoyable.

“Got something for you,” Crowley said suddenly, unceremoniously yanking Aziraphale out of his thought tornado. There was a box on the table, complete with a sparkly bow tied so terribly that the former demon must have done it himself.

The former angel hiccupped, his eyes drifting in and out of focus as he stared at it.

“A gift?” he asked. “My dear, you know that's unnecessary.”

“Iss not really a gift. Iss more of a… a…” Crowley waved his hand aggressively through the air in front of him, as if that would help him catch and subdue the word he needed, “...an act of mercy.”

Aziraphale eyed the box with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation.

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Oh for… for… for... _whatever’s_ sake, angel, jus’ open it.”

There was a thrum in Aziraphale’s human veins as he gingerly untied the mangled bow. He and Crowley had never given one another anything in all of the 6,000 years they'd known each other, unless an occasional traded curse or miracle counted. What, he wondered, could have inspired his friend to break that streak? It must be something remarkable! Something inspiring! It must be--

\--an iPhone.

He blinked at it, his wine-soaked brain struggling to identify an appropriate response.

In the end, he settled on, “Huh.”

“Oh, c’mon…” Crowley coaxed, “Not so bad, is it?”

“Hm,” the former angel managed. He eyed the shiny white smartphone the way one might eye a sleeping cobra.

“Can’t stop progress, angel,” Crowley insisted, with the intense conviction that only comes from a bottle, “We saved the bloody _world_!” He gesticulated a bit too excitedly, sloshing red wine all over the tablecloth. A few heads turned towards them from other tables.

“Well, sort of did,” he amended, taking a sloppy sip out of his glass. “Helped anyway. My point… my _point_ , angel… is we almost got ‘rselves snuffed out forever so we could live in this world. _This_ one. Y’know, the modern one. Not the one from bloody 1885.”

“I liked 1885,” Aziraphale sighed, swirling his wine and saying a silent eulogy for the gavotte.

“‘sides,” Crowley said, leaning back in his chair, “now I can send you cat gifs.”

Aziraphale gave the iPhone his best impression of the evil eye as he took a gulp of wine. As far as he was concerned, cellular telephones had a rather significant design flaw, and that was that people could _call_ you _anywhere_.

“‘s this because of last week?” he asked, thinking back on Crowley bursting into the bookshop ready to fight off an army of avenging angels because he’d decided to take his phone off the hook and read, “Because I apologized for that.”

“No,” Crowley said, sullenly. “Not related at all.”

Truthfully, the pristine white exterior of the offending smartphone reminded Aziraphale a bit too much of the ethereal communication devices preferred by the archangels above. There had been a time when he’d imagined that, if he got one, it would be constantly chiming with celestial admonishments. Sticking with the old-fashioned method--namely, the summoning circle--for communication had seemed safer somehow.

In fact, the direct line to Home Office was still awkwardly concealed beneath his shop rug, despite a gnawing sense in his gut that it probably shouldn’t. Every day for months now, he’d told himself that he was going to wash it out... and every day he never quite got around to it. Which was silly, of course. Ridiculous.

He would do it tonight, he decided. Scrub the whole blasted thing out with steel wool, if he had to. It was long past due and he’d undoubtedly feel better once it was gone for good.

“Oy, angel, don’t be so dramatic,” Crowley’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. It took him a moment to realize that he had lurched out of his chair and was standing beside their table like a supernatural being on a mission. Though the effect was somewhat marred by the way he kept swaying back and forth on his feet.

“I jus’…” Aziraphale began, running his hands through his platinum hair until it stood straight up. “Time to head back, I think. Things t’do and whatnot.”

At that, Crowley turned a meaningful look toward Aziraphale’s untouched souffle.

“You’re going to just… leave that?” he asked, incredulously. This was the third time in as many weeks that Aziraphale had failed to fully consume a fancy treat--an event that had not happened once in the several centuries prior--and Crowley found it mildly alarming.

“Oh,” the former angel said absently. “Not really hungry, I suppose.”

His friend stared at him like he’d just metamorphosed into the Kraken.

“...right,” Crowley said. “I’ll drive you home, then. Jus’ let me sober up…”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Everything all right there, angel?”

“Wha? ‘Course,” Aziraphale mumbled, stabbing his key at the lock with too much force and too little depth perception. Too far away, then too low, then too far to the right. “Oh, bugger it all for a—”

There was an unearned click and the door politely, if perhaps a bit judgmentally, swung open. For a moment, Aziraphale just blinked at it in bleary surprise. Then he sensed rather than saw the demon’s bemused smirk behind him and he straightened himself up as best he could. Which, given the sheer volume of Chateauneuf de Pape currently circulating through his human body’s circulatory system, was actually more of a sideways lean.

“Thank you,” he managed. “S’you later then.”

“You going to sober up or what?” Crowley asked. He arched an eyebrow, making it clear what he really meant was, _What the heaven is going on with you? Do I need to be worried? Because worrying’s a bloody pain in the arse, but I’ll do it if I have to._

Aziraphale just shrugged expansively, as if to reply, _Nonsense, dear boy. Never been better. Completely, one hundred percent normal and most definitely not slogging my way through an omnipresent numbing fog. Why would you even ask?_

In response, Crowley narrowed his eyes at his friend in a way that said, _That was an awfully suspicious answer, angel, but I suppose I’ll take your word for it._ He lingered on the front step of the bookshop, unsure whether the best choice was to leave the former angel alone to work his way through... through... whatever this was... or stay and make sure he didn’t do something characteristically stupid.

“Don’t go discorporating yourself falling over a pile of books,” he said at last. Then, after a moment, “Leave that phone on, yeah?”

Aziraphale merely rolled his eyes, closed and locked the door, and sank to the floor of the bookshop with a wine-scented gurgle. The wood boards were cool and smooth, and the sensation was really quite pleasant against his too-warm cheek. How had he never noticed what a lovely, comforting texture his floor had before now?

After several minutes he became aware that something was digging rather painfully into his right thigh. He grunted, shifting just enough to reach a hand into his pocket and fish out the offending item.

Ah, yes. That infernal telephone. He tossed it grumpily, watching it slide across the floor until it came to rest at the edge of the circular rug. For a moment, he could have sworn he felt the energy of the concealed summoning circle humming through the floorboards.

Or perhaps that was the wine’s doing.

Whatever it was, it got Aziraphale to lift himself onto his hands and knees, drag himself across the room, and yank back the rug. The circle was there, of course, just as it had been for centuries. A direct line to Home Office, in all its cabalistic glory.

Would Pine Sol take out an ethereal summoning circle? Hard to know. He gently traced one finger around the outer edge, considering. Might need something stronger. Sandpaper, perhaps.

The circle radiated subtle, comforting warmth against his skin. He still had some of those white candles in the filing cabinets, he mused absently. What should he do with those?

In order to fully understand what happened next, one needs to remember three things: First, that Aziraphale had consumed enough wine that night to knock out a Clydesdale; Second, that multiple reputable studies have found that one’s decision-making skills may be less than ideal while under the influence of alcohol; and Third, that the majority of us have, at one time or another, given in to the temptation to drunkenly contact someone who was objectively much less impressive than the Almighty, so really who are we to judge?

The circle glowed to life when Aziraphale lit the seventh candle, swaying a bit as he placed it along the outline. He attempted to kneel, as was typically done, but lost his balance and found himself spread-eagled on the floor instead. It was more comfortable than kneeling anyway, so he opted to stay.

“Lord!” he shouted at the ceiling, a bit too loudly. “Loooooord!”

And the circle flared to life.

“Yes?” said a deep, posh-sounding voice.

“Metatrooon!” Aziraphale whooped, in a tone more appropriate for greeting a long-lost drinking buddy than the Voice of God.

“Aziraphale,” the Metatron said, and the room suddenly felt much, much colder. “You have been imbibing.”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale said happily. “How’s things, then?”

“This is not an appropriate use of our communication system,” the Metatron intoned darkly. Still on the floor, Aziraphale spread his arms wide to show that his intentions were innocent. The effect was that he appeared to be making a snow angel on the floorboards.

“Come on, old boy, just wanted to say hello. For old times sake,” he said with what he thought was a disarming smile but was much closer to a psychotic grimace. “Catch up on the news. Bask in the glory of the Almighty. You know…”

“We do not.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale sat up with a jolt and the room heaved around him most unpleasantly. “It’s not terrilb… tribbl… very late, izzit? I’d hate to have--”

“Heaven is outside of Time and Space,” the Voice sighed. Aziraphale sank back to the comforting coolness of the floorboards.

“Of course. Right, right. S'good to hear Your Voice again, ma’am,” Aziraphale said, then reconsidered. “Er. Sir. Er. Well, you know what I mean.” The Powers That Be were never very forthcoming about the proper etiquette when it came to the whole Voice of God vs. Actual God thing. Come to think of it, they were never very forthcoming about just about anything.

“We are going now,” said the Metatron.

“But we just got on!” Aziraphale protested. “C’mon and tell me ‘bout--”

The light in the circle vanished. The former angel blinked in foggy disbelief. Had the Voice of God just _hung up_ on him? How unspeakably rude!

With increased resolve, he cleared his throat, closed his eyes, and said the Words again.

Once more, the circle flared to life.

“I don’t see why we can’t jus’--” he began.

“You are embarrassing yourself,” the Metatron boomed.

“But I--”

Darkness again.

“Hello?” Aziraphale ventured. There was, of course, no answer. This was getting absurd. Really, all he wanted was a late-night chat with someone Above. They didn’t have to get so uppity about it.

For a third time, he spoke the Words to the circle. Light shone down once more.

“Now, see here…” he began, fully prepared to give the Voice of God a sound talking to about etiquette, but he was cut off by a new, canned-sounding voice.

_We’re sorry, but this metaphysical line of communication has been disconnected. Please blow out your candles and try again._

He gaped up at the source of the light, his vision drifting in and out of focus.

“Fine, then! Nobody down here cares what’s going on upstairs anyway!” he shouted at no one in particular. “You’re all... all... dumb.”

That would show them.

It was a minor miracle—and it really was; the former angel was much too far gone to pull off anything remotely supernatural—that Aziraphale managed to get the candles blown out and stagger his way to the couch in his back room. He lay there, one arm dangling off the edge, staring forlornly at the ceiling.

How dare they not take his call. OK, so he was a renegade angel who had, if not exactly _Fallen_ , certainly at least tripped... but still. It was unacceptable that they would block _anybody’s_ call to Heaven, no matter the situation. It was spiteful. It was cruel. It was... it was...

Oof. The room was spinning an awful lot, wasn’t it?

In his more than 6,000 years of existence, Aziraphale had never slept. He simply didn’t see the point of it the way he did with other human activities. After all, his body worked just fine without it and there were far better uses for his nighttime hours. eBay book auctions, for example.

But as he lay limply on his couch, his mind a murky swamp of red wine and bitterness, he had to admit that temporary unconsciousness sounded rather appealing.

And lo, the angel Aziraphale—Principality of Our Sovereign Lord, Former Member of the Heavenly Choir, and Guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden—passed out cold.


End file.
